Kyuu said: Platform holders shouldn't gain control over massive 3rd party assets no matter the promises or expectations. From a consumer perspective, it's at best a waste of resources. In the console/PC space, multi-billion dollar acquisitions were initiated by Microsoft with Mojang for $2.5 billion in 2014 (which ironically proved very cheap and arguably their best get). They then got Bethesda ($7.5b) and ABK ($68b). Sony (gaming) never made acquisitions of this scale until 2022 with Bungie ($3b "overvalued"). Before that, their biggest was Insomniac at $230 million. I very much doubt FromSoftware and Elden Ring aren't a large part of the appeal. 2 years ago, Sony bought 14% of FromSoftware specifically, months after the release of Elden Ring. Both needs aligned and they're trying to get Kadokawa for gaming AND anime/manga.
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I agree, platform holders shouldnt gain control over massive 3rd party assets no matter the promises or expectations.
I completely forgot about Mojang lol (and Insomniac as well).
Actually there's discussion that the Kadokawa situation accelerated due to a potential hostile takeover by a Korean Corp.
"Kakao (a large South Korean company) has been buying shares in Kadokawa since 2020. It's possible that Kadokawa approached Sony on an acquisition to prevent a hostile takeover. This may also explain why this deal leaked (so Kakao stops buying shares). "
Either ways, gonna be a paradigm shift for the Anime industry.
I dont think MS would bluff about CoD, too much of a risk for them and I dont think removing Elden Ring would be comparable, pretty much everyone who wants ER has it and the frequency of releases or amount of sales isnt comparable to CoD.